Superstition

12

Joanna's parents came in from Westchester County one weekend out of three. They stayed at the same small hotel behind the Plaza that they'd used for twenty years, and where they were gold star clients and got a preferential rate. Their usual routine was to take in a show, maybe catch a movie or an exhibition, and see their daughter.

Elizabeth Cross was an attractive woman with a good figure and a flair for simple, stylish clothes. She looked a good deal younger than her fifty-six years, as did her husband, Bob, who would be sixty in the spring. Although of only medium height and balding now, he still had the trim physique and confident agility of a much younger man. Joanna was always proud to be seen with her parents. Normally the three of them would dine in some favorite restaurant. Tonight was no exception, aside from the fact that they were going to be four: Joanna had invited Sam to join them.

To get the introductions over in as relaxed an atmosphere as possible, she had everybody over for a glass of champagne at her tiny apartment in Beekman Place. Sam, as Joanna had expected, was charming and amusing and completely at ease. She could tell that her father liked him at once, though her mother was less than at ease with his choice of profession.

“Is it anything like that film Ghostbusters that's always on television?” she asked.

Sam smiled. It was question he was familiar with.

“Nothing so dramatic,” he said. “I only wish it were. But we're just scientists investigating hard-to-categorize phenomena.”

“Something like The X-Files?” her father suggested.

“A little, I guess, in some ways. Except we have nothing to do with the government.”

“But this thing about creating a ghost,” Joanna's mother persisted. “It sounds positively morbid.”

During the cab ride to the restaurant, which was in the sixties between Lexington and Third, Sam explained in as much detail as he could what the experiment was designed to achieve. Joanna could see that her mother wasn't much reassured, but her father was fascinated.

“So let me see if I've got this right,” he said, after they'd been seated at their table and placed their orders. “Telepathy is communication mind to mind, while clairvoyance is seeing some place or event, as opposed to the contents of another mind.”

“Correct,” Sam said, “although there's obviously some overlap. Seeing at a distance often involves seeing what somebody else is seeing.”

“Precognition,” Joanna's father went on, ticking the subjects off on his fingers, “speaks for itself, though why these people who can do it don't just get rich at the racetrack I don't understand.”

“Well, sometimes people do predict a winner,” Sam demurred. “It just isn't reliable enough to beat the odds consistently.”

“And finally there's psychokinesis, which means mind over matter-moving solid objects by thought alone.”

“And maybe creating solid objects,” Joanna added. “Or at least solid-looking.”

“Well, I think it all sounds very strange, and I'd rather have nothing to do with it,” Joanna's mother said. “Call me superstitious if you like, but I think there are some things in this life that we should just leave alone.”

“Elizabeth, if we all took that attitude, we'd still be living in caves,” Joanna's father said. “Today's technology is yesterday's magic. People were burned at the stake for ideas that led to Teflon and television. Hey, Sam, did Joanna ever tell you that I saw a flying saucer one time?”

“Oh, Bob!” Elizabeth said reproachfully, as though he'd made some social faux pas in polite company.

“Yes, as a matter of fact she did, Mr. Cross.”

Elizabeth got on with her dinner as her husband told the story that she'd heard too many times. She had always felt that some unspoken stigma attached to any claim to have seen UFOs, ghosts, or anything else sufficiently out of the ordinary. It was something that set you apart from other people, and she dearly wished that her husband would not talk so freely of his experience.

“I was flying an F-14 off the Nimitz in the west Atlantic. I came out of some high cloud around twenty thousand feet-and there it was. It was about three miles east, just hovering there, a silver disk shape, no windows, no lights as far as I could see. But solid. I reported in. They said they had nothing on their screens. I turned to investigate, and as I approached, it just kind of shot off like it was on a wire or something. It didn't accelerate the way any regular craft would. It just went straight from zero to bat out of hell. Disappeared in two, three seconds-just like it hadn't been there. But to my dying day, I'll know what I saw.”

They talked around the subject for a while, but Joanna was conscious of Sam's subtly steering the conversation toward other topics in deference to her mother's unease.

Later, when Elizabeth left the table to go to the women's room, Joanna went with her. She watched her mother as she reapplied her makeup in the mirror. There was something clipped and too brisk in her movements, as though she wanted to communicate that she was unhappy but didn't want to say it.

“You okay, Mom?” Joanna ventured cautiously.

“Yes, of course, darling. Why?”

“I just thought you were a little quiet.” The comment drew no response, so she continued, “Are you still having that dream that you told me about on the phone?”

“Dream? Oh, that-no, I haven't had it since we talked.”

“That's good.” Joanna checked her hair in the mirror, turned, flicked an end. “I didn't much care for that idea of being locked out in the rain all night.”

Another silence as her mother snapped her compact shut and took out a lipstick. “If you're waiting to hear what I think of Sam,” she said after a moment, “I think he's very nice.”

“Nothing was further from my mind,” Joanna said airily. Then added, “But…?”

“I didn't say ‘but’…”

Joanna waited as her mother applied a touch of color to her mouth and pressed her lips together. “But, since you mention it, it does seem a rather strange choice of profession.”

“He's a psychologist. What's strange about that?”

“You know perfectly well what I mean. A psychologist is a doctor. That's not what he does.”

“A psychologist is not necessarily a doctor. It's someone who studies some aspect of human psychology.”

“Exactly- human.”

“Mom, he's not weird. In fact he's one of the sanest and most intelligent men I've ever met.”

“I'm sure he is. It's just that I find this whole thing you're getting into very-I don't know-uncomfortable.”

“What whole thing?”

“This whole world of weirdness. I wish you'd go back to writing those travel pieces you used to do. Or more of those reports on the environment.”

“I'm a journalist,” Joanna objected stiffly. “I have to cover whatever the magazine wants.”

“Well, the sooner you've covered this particular subject and moved on, the happier I'll be. I still feel a shiver down my spine every time I think about those horrible people you wrote about at that Camp whatever-it-was-called. It's better not to get involved.”

“That was a scam that had to be exposed.”

“So what's the difference between that and what Sam's doing?”

“There's no comparison. This is scientifically based research.”

“Then I'm probably wrong and we won't talk about it…”

Elizabeth Cross gave her reflection one last check and started for the door. Joanna followed her out, catching up with her in the corridor.

“Mother, that is your most irritating habit.”

Elizabeth gave her a look of innocent surprise. “What is…?”

“You know perfectly well-saying something provocative just as you walk out the door and before anyone can call you on it.”

They had reached the stairs. Elizabeth Cross paused with one foot on the first step and turned to her daughter.

“I wasn't aware that I had said anything provocative.”

Joanna felt her lips twitch, and was immediately aware of her mother's amused reaction. That twitch had been a habit of Joanna's since she was a child, and she cursed herself for never having mastered it. It meant that she had put herself in the wrong-said too much or something she didn't mean-but would die before admitting it.

“All I meant,” her mother said in a conciliatory tone, “was it's an unusual job, and it must take an unusual person to do it. That doesn't mean he isn't very nice, I already said he was. Now come along, or the poor man will be wondering what we're saying about him.”

Joanna followed her mother through the leather-upholstered door at the top of the stairs and across the restaurant to their table. She felt a curious unease. Something in her mother's words, more particularly in the unspoken misgivings behind them that she couldn't quite identify, had brought back the image of Ellie Ray's face, twisted with black rage and pushed into hers that morning on Sixth Avenue.

But the feeling passed as they sat down. For the rest of the evening they talked of shows to see and events to catch in the coming season.

All the same, when the two couples said their good nights outside the restaurant before going their separate ways, Joanna sensed her mother's continued reserve. It both irritated and troubled her. She knew about her mother's instincts, and for most of her life had trusted them-often, as things turned out, with good reason. But this was different. This time her mother was simply mistaken. That was all there was to it.

She slipped her arm through Sam's and enjoyed the feeling of their closeness. He dipped his face to hers and kissed her lightly on the mouth as they walked into the wintry, glistening Manhattan night.